


Tour Guide

by orphan_account



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: First Date, M/M, hotel au, no one has ever played volleyball ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 17:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7693276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iwaizumi is on vacation. Getting interrupted by a stranger called Oikawa was not in his itinerary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tour Guide

“I think this hotel might be haunted,” said the man beside him.

“Haunted?” said Iwaizumi.

The man nodded. He glanced around, as if looking to see how many people were watching him, and then narrowed his eyes at Iwaizumi. “Yes, haunted. And to be honest, I think the employees here are in on it.”

“You think the hotel is haunted. And that the employees are somehow in cohorts with ghosts or something?” Iwaizumi’s voice held nothing but contempt. This stranger was already ruining his morning. Was breakfast no longer sacred?

“Yes!”

“Maybe you have a gas leak.” He had once read a murder novel where one of the victims had been badly affected by a carbon monoxide leak.

“It’d be pretty unprofessional for a hotel to have a gas leak without anyone noticing, wouldn’t it?”

“You think they play around with ghosts but still check for gas leaks?”

“I think _something_ is wrong.”

“That _something_ is you.” With that, Iwaizumi grabbed his pancakes from the buffet table and turned around. He had not taken a vacation for this.

*

The next morning, the same man appeared in line behind him again.

“You were right, mysterious stranger,” he said.

“Right about what?” said Iwaizumi.

“About there not being ghosts. Well, maybe. I talked to the front desk again and it turns out there was just a problem with the light bulb. The lights in my room kept turning on and off, see?”

“You must have been really embarrassed. Getting all worked up like that.”

The stranger smiled. “Not really. I mean, I think it would have been fun if the hotel really was haunted, don’t you? Not that I really believed it was! But, it would have made things more interesting.”

“You’re at a fancy hotel in France. Some people would say that’s already interesting enough.”

“I am never, ever satisfied. Not with anything,” he said. “My name is Tooru Oikawa – look, I’m saying it Western style, since we are in France, after all!”

“I’m Hajime Iwaizumi,” he said, following his lead. “And are you sure the gas leak theory is out?”

“Don’t be rude,” said Oikawa. “But don’t you think I’m right? What if I said there were aliens among us instead?”

“Get your food,” said someone in line behind him. Iwaizumi, startled, grabbed his usual pancakes again. Oikawa glanced at the buffet slowly, as if he had not heard the person behind them. He chose cereal – the sugary kind, with a cartoon mascot on the front of the box – and poured the milk slowly.

“You’re here alone, aren’t you? Let’s sit together,” said Oikawa.

“Is this a high school cafeteria or what?”

“Don’t be moody! Eating meals alone is a bit lonely, isn’t it?”

Iwaizumi rolled his eyes. However, he did not protest, and he followed Oikawa to a table next to the window. Iwaizumi could feel the heat of the sun warming his skin. Perhaps if the hotel had been in the middle of a stormy forest, he would have believed Oikawa’s theory more easily. Instead, they were in the middle of a city that had been advertised as ‘bustling, animated, and cosmopolitan, with a rich heritage’ in the travel brochures.

“You know, the French don’t respond so well when you try to talk to them,” said Oikawa. “They get really grumpy if you don’t pronounce everything per-fect-ly. And I took the trouble to download this Japanese-to-French language app on my phone!”

“Maybe it has more to do with what you’re saying. Not how you’re saying it,” said Iwaizumi. He looked at Oikawa, taking him in brief glances. Tooru Oikawa was handsome – hair that must have been styled in the morning every day, a face that hinted at a sweet personality, and clothing that was clean, well-fitted, somewhere between casual and formal. Iwaizumi had a profile in his head for people who went up to strangers and started discussing their theories about haunted hotels and Oikawa did not fit it.

“Maybe…” Oikawa eyes drifted to the window, his hand placed underneath his chin. He had eaten all of his cereal quickly. Who went to France to eat cereal? “But you know, it is my job to look at things this way. Sort of. I always have to be open to _possibilities_.”

“Possibilities?” Iwaizumi sorted through different jobs in his head. He could not come up with anything that required badgering strangers about ghosts. Maybe a scam-artist.

“I’m a writer! Actually, I’ve published a few novels, for kids. You know, they love this sort of thing, ghosts, and aliens, and so on.”

“An author, huh?”

“That’s right!” said Oikawa. He smiled. It really was a startling smile, Iwaizumi thought. He still hadn’t thrown out the possibility of Oikawa being a scam-artist.

“Haven’t heard of you.”

“So blunt, aren’t you? But I wouldn’t have expected it unless you had a kid.”

“Didn’t know that authors that weren’t famous made enough to vacation in France.”

“No, you’re worse than blunt. Maybe awkward? Rude? Oafish?”

Iwaizumi shrugged. “Just getting the facts straight.”

“The way you’re looking at me, you’d think I was on trial and you were the angry prosecutor,” said Oikawa, “trying to get me found _guilty_.” Iwaizumi came close to blushing – he had thought he was being more subtle looking at him.

“I guess – I’m sorry. But it’s not every day you get a total stranger interrupting your breakfast to blabber like that.”

Oikawa laughed. “Are you still on that?”

Iwaizumi stabbed the last piece of his pancake with his fork and ate it.

“Anyway,” continued Oikawa, “what are you planning to do in this _merveilleux_ city today?” He said the French word with relish.

“Going with my tour group. We’re supposed to be visiting some churches, and an opera house. It’s history day.”

“How dull! Travel is a time for excitement. You should be forging your own path, rather than following someone around! Here, why don’t you come with me? I could show you around.”

“Wouldn’t that still be following someone around?”

Iwaizumi thought that Oikawa’s smile looked a bit strained.

*

Iwaizumi wondered when he had decided to break routine like this.

He had booked this vacation under the recommendation of his boss – “You’re working too hard,” he had said. He had visited a travel agent, who had listened to him, and told him about wonderful hotel that had the most marvelous tours, and wouldn’t you just love to go?

So he had booked the trip, taking a week off, and had settled in. The first tour had started off with a citadel that was too ancient to conceive, one that would have been the appropriate background for dragon-slaying. The second day had been a day visit to the wine region. Iwaizumi was in no way a wine person, but that had been fun, and had ended with him buying a wine bottle, which he planned to bring back to Japan with him.

So, on the third day, why was he skipping his historical tour? Granted, the tours were entirely optional. But Iwaizumi had the sinking feeling that he was disappointing someone by skipping out on them. And skipping out to go traipse with a complete stranger!

“Where are we going?” said Iwaizumi. Oikawa had admonished him after he took out a paper map to track where they were going (“You look like a tourist!” “I _am_ a tourist.”), as Oikawa strolled, humming as he went by. He did not ever take out a map, or check the GPS on his phone, or ask directions from the city’s inhabitants. He walked with confidence.

“You’ll see!” he said.

They arrived; the entrance was marked by a gate, and they slipped inside. Iwaizumi could see others inside, and wondered how many of them were like him, visiting for the first time.

“Today,” said Oikawa, “we’ll be going mini-golfing.”

“Mini-golfing?” said Iwaizumi.

“The zoo, Iwa-chan!” said Oikawa (when had he become _Iwa-chan_?), smiling. “I need to do a bit of research for my next story. Let’s see - the protagonists all visit mini-golfing on a field trip, and then something bizarre happens… But what?”

“Giving up on the haunted hotel theme?”

“Maybe I’ll include the haunted hotel and the mini-golfing in the same story… The hotel is haunted and they all run off, only to find that every employee working at the mini-golf place has been replaced by an alien?”

“That sounds a bit unnatural.”

“Oh, would you be quiet!”

“You'll confuse all your readers,” said Iwaizumi. A teasing tone had crept into his voice. “They'll all wonder, is this a hotel story or a mini-golf story? A ghost story or an alien story? And then they'll give up in disgust.”

The park that stretched far beyond what Iwazumi could see, with various arrows marked on signposts - _zoo, jardin, lac_ \- words he did not understand. The amount of arrows seemed infinite. Oikawa took only a moment to look, eyes scanning up and down, and set off to the left without hesitation.

“We begin our day,” said Oikawa, his voice taking on a regal quality, “with mini-golf, to the left.”

*

“I don’t think I’m very good at mini-golf,” said Oikawa.

“I guess I crushed you pretty badly.”

He had lost. Iwaizumi could recognize the signs of strain that appeared in Oikawa’s face for a spell - his jaw set, and a false glow in his eyes. Oikawa had tried, but he did not have the delicate precision that mini-golf required. It did not matter how much determination or eagerness you had when your putter couldn’t hit the ball.

“Just so you know,” said Oikawa, “I’m going to win next time. I’m going to be the _king_ of the next hole.”

“There is no next hole. I’ve won them all.”

Iwaizumi was not good at mini-golf. But he could hit the ball, something he had learned to do during the one or two times he had attempted to golf in a half-assed attempt at networking. He had lost during all of those networking attempts. Iwaizumi thought that this might have been the first time he had won at anything golf-related.

“I’m good at tennis,” said Oikawa.

Was he trying to impress him?

“I’ll be watching out for you during the next Olympics,”

“Next time, I’ll take you to a tennis court, and crush you.” Oikawa blinked, and continued: “Or at least show you a good time.”

“Are you saying there’s going to be a next time?” said Iwaizumi.

“Is it wrong to be optimistic?”

“Listen,” said Iwaizumi (he wondered what he was doing for a brief moment), “I’ve got a bottle of wine I got from a wine tasting earlier and wouldn’t you-”

“How fancy of you, Iwa-chan!” He set his arm out. “Why don’t you lead me this time?”

**Author's Note:**

> Do you ever spend too much time inside your head and then you read the newest chapter of Haikyuu, and you realize, oh yeah, this is a manga about a short kid learning how to play volleyball?
> 
> I swear that this was meant to be a Haunted Hotel AU when I started. I don’t know how it got away from me.
> 
> The city they visit is based off of a combination of Toulouse and Lyon, but I decided not to name it to have a bit more freedom. Yes, I know they’re pretty far away from each other. The park is based off of the Parc de la Tête d'Or. I’ve never actually been to France (does Quebec count?), my apologies if I’ve made any errors!
> 
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
